NANCY BOYD

"Field Notes #2"

Nancy Boyd’s recent series, Excavation with Field Notes, explores an internal universe – what she calls “the interior of the body or the interior of the self.” Her speculative gestures celebrate randomness; for instance, she makes loose ink marks with a paintbrush taped to the end of a long stick, a technique designed to subvert her skill at drawing. “Essentially, the natural in the world will win out,” says Boyd. “Nature will have its way.” Still, she balances this free-spirited impulse with more controlled passages to create a resonant yin-and-yang dynamic.

Boyd creates rich and tactile surfaces with graphite and acrylic washes as well as lacquer transfers and stencils. Her quirk is an aversion to applying paint with a brush. “I end up putting the paint and the colour onto other things and then I kind of stamp them onto the surface. I want some kind of an interface … no direct evidence of the contrived hand.”

Many pieces in the series are diptychs that Boyd paired only after individual components were completed. “I get to play around with them like a deck of cards, which is kind of fun because often, then, it will show up something that is surprising and more effective than what I intended.”

Boyd, who retired three years ago after teaching at Capilano University in Vancouver for 23 years, studied at the University of Waterloo and the Ontario College of Art and Design, now OCAD University, in Toronto. She worked in graphic design and architectural rendering before establishing a serious studio practice.

Nancy Boyd is represented by Wallace Galleries in Calgary. Her work is priced at $300 to $3,000.